Friday, October 25, 2013

D is for my room decorations! I still don't have many up, but I like have a few fun things in my room to make my broom closet a little more enjoyable. First is my name plaque that I have hung on my door. I got everything I needed from Michael's!

Next is my "Welcome to Speech" banner. I found this on TpT, but I can't for life of me find the link for you guys! If you search "Chevron Welcome Banners", you'll come up with tons of options :)

Last is my subway art inspired pictures! I got my inspiration from All Y'all Need's Subway Art on TpT. I wanted to change a few fonts and colors to make it more fit my style, and this is what I came up with!

I hope you all enjoyed my room decorations. What are a few of your room decor ideas?

Monday, October 21, 2013

It's that time again!! Time to reward those of you who leave great feedback for your favorite TPT sellers! I've linked up with Allison's Speech Peeps for this month's S...Peachy Feedback Linky Party.Your feedback means the world to me. I promise I read each and every one, and each and every one is wonderful. I love hearing what you all have to say, so keep leaving that feedback! Not only does it enter you in a chance to win a free product from my store (and let other's know what you thought of my products), you earn TPT credits to use on future products- what could be better than that!!This month's winner is:

Congrats "lindarobideau", email me at sharon.schackmann@gmail.com to get your FREE product from my store! You can find Language Boxes for Older Children here, and be sure to leave feedback if you grab it :)

Friday, October 18, 2013

C is for the classic game, Connect Four! It seems that anything we do can be made better with this game...I have to say 100 words? But I can play Connect Four while we do it? Ok! (Sometimes the logic of these kids amaze me! But hey, I'm not complaining!!)

I use it during articulation and language therapy. We take take turns saying our target, like our artic word, a synonym/antonym, attributes of an object, etc, and then my student gets to take a turn. I usually let them take about 3 turns, so that it seems like they are playing a real game instead of having huge gaps between each turn. The kids have fun, and I get the data I need for their targets- it's a win-win!

Some of your favorite SLPs are at it again! We're offering our Facebook followers exclusive FREEBIES!Click on the map to download your personal linked map. Look for the "Spooky Fun Frenzy" tab under the "like" button of each page.But hurry- these freebies will only be available from October 18-21!!!

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

I can't thank you all enough for you love and support! When I started this blog, I never thought that so many people would see it, let alone buy any of my materials! So to thank you, I've created a new freebie, "Articulation Jenga: K/G Edition"

Take a standard Jenga game (sold in stores) and color the ends of each piece with a marker: 9 red, 9 orange, 9 yellow, 9 blue, 9 green, and 9 purple. Set up the Jenga tower as directed. Place the cards on the correct color mat, red is initial k, orange is medial k, yellow is final k, blue is initial g, green is medial g, and purple is final g.

Draw blocks like a typical Jenga game. After a student draws a block, have them say their target at the correct level (word, phrase, or sentence), and then place their block on the top of the tower. Keep playing until the tower falls over!There are 15 cards for each position for both K and G, that's 90 cards total! Below are some examples of how the cards are color coded for easier sorting.

If this looks like something you can use, you can find it here! Be on the lookout for more sounds coming your way :) And thank you again for your continued support, I couldn't do any of this without all of you!

Sunday, October 13, 2013

BONUS! Enter code "FB100K" for an extra 10% off my store courtesy of Teachers Pay Teachers! But this extra 10% off is only good until 10/14 Midnight Hawaii time!! And be sure to check out The Queen's Speech- She has all the Speechie TPT stores that are on sale!

Friday, October 11, 2013

B is for my absolutely-can't-live-without-take-with-me-everywhere-drive-out-of-the-way-to-get-it-if-I-forget-it binder. This thing is basically attached to my hip.

Why, you may ask? Because my speech therapy LIFE is in there! I keep my schedules for each of my schools in the front inside pocket and papers I need to carry back and forth between building in the back pocket.

Open my binder up to the first pages and you'll find my lesson plans. I just made up a simple table on Word. Each column top is a day of the week and the far right column is blank for notes. I manually wright in my students' names each week, simply because my schedule has changed so much lately I'm scared to put it in stone for 30 some more weeks :)

On the right hand side, I have tabs for all the students on my caseload. If you would open my binder up to one of the tabs, you would find an IEP Summary for the student including their goals and MPW (like I don't already have those written a billion other places). But since I travel between schools, it is nice to have quick access to info on every student on my caseload.

After the IEP summaries I have my goal tracker page. Each month I get a percentage and write it in the appropriate column. It's made progress reports so much easier! You can find this form here!

So there you have it! Is your binder as important to you as mine is to me?? I would love to hear how you organize it!

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

I hope you've enjoyed this weekly feature and you've found some great products to use in therapy! This will be the last week for my "Worth it Wednesday" feature for a while since I have started my new features on Fridays. But stay tuned, they won't be gone forever :)

My kiddos love Connect Four. I have those certain students that ask for it every.single.session. So I was so excited to see it in a new format!

It looks just like the regular Connect Four game, but instead of dropping the pieces into the holder and trying to connect four that way, your students can choose to cover up spaces anywhere on the game board. This activity covers categories, object functions, attributes, synonyms, and antonyms.

What I love:

This targets 5 different aspects of language quickly and easily. Each activity has its own page, so that's 42 different opportunities to practice each target!

There's a blank page at the end to add your own targets, which is always a plus.

The targets on each page include ones I haven't seen targeted in other products.

Friday, October 4, 2013

I'm so excited to share with you a new Friday Feature: "ABC's of my Speech Room!" Each Friday, I'm going to let you in on a different aspect of my speech room that I can't live without. They may be purchased commercial products, dollar store finds, desk supplies- absolutely anything that makes my speech room run (semi) smoothly. So without further ado, here we go!

Each activity includes two pages, a direction page for the SLP and a black and white picture page for your student. All you need are 8 crayons (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, and black) and you are ready to go!I use this product to target following directions (don't mind me stating the obvious), prepositions/basic concepts, describing items, story telling, inferencing, and problem solving. All the boys on my caseload love it (and so do the girls if I change some of the colors and let them use pink instead of blue or green)! It's great for those mixed language groups, and I've even used it with kiddos in 6th grade who have found it fun. The picture pages are engaging and interesting for my students. There is enough going on in each picture to make things challenging, but not too much that it is impossible. For my littles, I like to talk about the picture before we work on the page. We can talk about what the names of the dinosaurs are, distinguishing characteristics of the dinosaurs (this one has horns, this dinosaur has a long neck, look at the spots on this dinosaur, etc...), and other things in the picture (volcanoes, trees, water, flowers). It is a great language lesson for them!How would you use this with your students? Do you have an "A" item from your speech room that you couldn't live without?This post contains an affiliate link for your convenience.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

I can't believe it's already Wednesday again! I've got another great product in store for you, but this week's feature is a little bit different. Instead of featuring a TpT product (which I promise I'll get back to doing next week!!) I'm reviewing a product that I know many people were wondering about- Word Feast Middle School!

I've been using this book, along with the Elementary version for my young kiddos, for almost a month now. The layout of the book makes it incredibly easy to teach the vocabulary. Every section starts out with a page like this.

The page includes the new words that your student will learn, as well as words from the previous lessons (which I think is wonderful!). Prompts are included as to how to start the session, such as what questions to ask your students to get them thinking about what they will be talking about during that lesson. The page also includes the pages of the reading passages and activities in the lesson.

After the initial page, there are your reading excerpts. There's always one longer story that uses all of the vocabulary words in it. The vocab words are bolded in the text to make them easier to find.

The next page or two include additional reading passages where the vocab is used. I really like these pages- they are usually set up as ads or postcards, something small that our students might see in real life that includes the vocabulary words.

The page(s) after that include the definitions of the vocabulary words. I like them being here instead of first in the lesson. Why? Because I like seeing if my students know the definition before we start the lesson. I will read the words and ask if they had heard these words before. I write down what they think the definitions are on a white board. As we read each reading passage, I ask my students if their idea for the definition has changed. You'll be surprised how one context suddenly makes the definition clear to a student over another context!

What I love about these definition pages are that it includes its part of speech, the definition, a usage tip, and then correct vs. incorrect usage of the word. After we review the word's definition and talk about its usage tip, I say both sentences, in random order so the correct sentence isn't always first, and ask which sentence had the vocabulary word being used the right way.

After we go over the definitions, I usually have them put some (if not all) of their words in a vocabulary graphic organizer. You can find the one I use here.

The next pages are the activities where you can apply the vocabulary words that your students have learned. Here are a few examples....

Other examples of activities include Association Activities, Synonyms and Antonyms, and Create your own Sentences. There are many activities to do that apply your students' knowledge of the vocabulary words. I'm not saying that this should replace your work with curriculum vocab, it most definitely should not. But it is a wonderful supplement that introduces your students to more Tier 2 words that they might not get in school.

So what do I love? In addition to everything above, let me tell you a few more things....

The lessons are age appropriate. Aside from getting things from your students' textbooks, it is often hard to find passages that expand and build upon each other like you can find here.

The lessons increase in difficulty, challenging your students more and more as you go. Also, the lessons are mostly curricular based.

The vocabulary are Tier 2 words, which is oh so important for our middle school population.

The vocabulary words are repeated throughout the entire book. A word you use in one lesson may reappear in following lessons.

I purchased these books on my own. Linguisystems did not provide me with these books in exchange for my review.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

There's a handy anchor chart that you can use with your students that give definitions of an idiom, simile, and metaphor.

I've included 24 different idiom, simile, and metaphor cards! That's 72 cards in all! Mix all the cards together and have your students decide if the sentence(s) is an idiom, simile, or metaphor. Or, keep the cards separate, or mix together if you choose, and have your student explain the meaning of the figurative language being used.

I've also included a two page game board. Simply roll the dice and move around the game board, collecting points as you go!

And to keep track of those points, you can use these score sheets!

If you're in need of a new figurative language activity, check out "Hold your Horses" here! How do you target figurative language?

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About Me

Hello there! Thanks for stopping by. I'm lucky enough to be employed at a wonderful middle school for my CFY. I graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in Edwardsville, Illinois. My husband is my rock and my family and friends are two of the most important things in my life. I feel so blessed to have found a profession that I truly love, and I hope that you enjoy this blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Feel free to use the downloads, freebies, and ideas found on this blog. Contact me: sharon.schackmann@gmail.com